Jeffrey Kuebler says Funktional Flow lives for live music, and not just its own.

"We're show junkies," he said. "If we're not playing a show, we're at a show. Absolutely we are 100 percent students of any sort of live music that will inspire us."

Mike Szczepanik, the band's other guitarist, went virtually without sleep to catch Phish after Funktional Flow played Dec. 29 in Hamburg, N.Y.

"He jumped right from the show and hopped on a plane to New York City," Kuebler said. "He caught the two shows in New York City, then took a train ride back that morning for our New Year's Eve show at Nietzsche's. So, he was burning the candle at both ends. That's the mentality we have."

Funktional Flow took the Nietzsche's gig at the behest of their buddies in Aqueous, who played there the previous New Year's Eve but elected to play Crooked I on Dec. 31, 2013. Kuebler sees Aqueous as friends and mentors.

"They're like our best friends in the scene," he said. "We kind of have each other's backs in Buffalo. They've helped us greatly, kind of opened their arms to us like a big brother. They've been doing such a great job for such a long time, and took us under their wing and helped us out."

Funktional Flow, together less than three years, is already making big inroads with its approach, which is less progressive than Aqueous and dabbles more heavily in reggae and funk, especially, but also trance and house.

"We do a lot more reggae than a lot of the jam bands," Kuebler said. "That's kind of a key focus for us, reggae music, which obviously you find in the jam scene. But I feel like we kind of exploit that genre a bit more."

They can also get heavy at times, but the band -- like its name suggests -- finds a way to make everything flow seamlessly. That includes covers. Reggae original "Ambush," for instance, has segued into the Talking Heads' "Crosseyed and Painless." Funktional Flow has also covered such artists as Sublime, Stevie Wonder, the Beatles and Bob Marley.

They jam, too, but with purpose and direction.

"The thing about it is, we tend to get bored pretty quick," Kuebler said. "So, we try not to jam for the purpose of jamming. We try to have it be organic and have it go somewhere."

If they start to meander, they can shift gears instantly.

"That's been a benefit for us, having the ability to kind of audible on stage," Kuebler said. "If a song or a jam isn't going exactly the way we want, we can hit the eject button and bail out into the next section."

Tonight's show is just their second at Crooked I.

"We played as the support, probably a year and a half ago (for Manhattan Project)," Kuebler said. "We love it; the place is amazing. (Thursday) is going to be a lot of fun, I can guarantee that.

"We like to play free shows. It's more of an incentive for people to come out and for us to hopefully continue building."